UPDATE, 9:36 a.m.:
Chanting “DOMA is Dead,” supporters of same-sex marriage burst into cheers Wednesday at news of the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating part of a law denying gay marriage partners the same federal benefits heterosexual couples enjoy.
Sarah Prager, 26, cried when she heard the news standing outside the court. Prager married her wife in Massachusetts in 2011 and now lives in Maryland.
“I’m in shock. I didn’t expect DOMA to be struck down,” she said through tears and shaking. Prager was referring to the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, which was aimed at preserving the legal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.
A large crowd had thronged to the high court’s plaza earlier to await not only the decision on DOMA, but also a ruling on whether a constitutional amendment in California prohibiting gay marriage could stand the test of challenge.
Most of the crowd that spilled across the sidewalk in front of the court were gay marriage supporters. One person held a rainbow flag and another wore a rainbow shawl, and a number of people carried signs with messages including “2 moms make a right” and “‘I Do’ Support Marriage Equality.” Others wore T-shirts including “Legalize gay” and “It’s time for marriage equality.” At several points the crowd began a call and response: “What do we want? Equality. When do we want it? Now.”
Larry Cirignano, 57, was in the minority with a sign supporting marriage only between a man and a woman. He said he drove four hours from Far Hills, N.J., because he believed all views should be represented. He said he hopes the court follows the lead of 38 states that have defined marriage as between one man and one woman
George Washington University student Philip Anderson, 20, came to the court with a closet door that towered above his head. He had painted it with a message opposing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman and which the court is considering. His door read: “This used to oppress me. Repeal DOMA; Now. No more shut doors.”
Thirty-four-year-old Ian Holloway of Los Angeles got to the court around 7 a.m. to try to get a seat inside the courtroom. Holloway said he and his partner had planned to get married in March but when the justices decided to hear the case involving California’s ban on gay marriage they pushed back their date.
He said, “We have rings ready. We’re ready to go as soon as the decision comes down.” Holloway said he was optimistic the justices would strike down Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California.
UPDATE, 9:13 a.m.:
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that legally married same-sex couples should get the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.
The court invalidated a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented married gay couples from receiving a range of tax, health and retirement benefits that are generally available to married people. The vote was 5-4.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.
The court has yet to release its decision on California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
“Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways,” Kennedy said.
“DOMA’s principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal,” he said.
He was joined by the court’s four liberal justices.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Scalia read his dissent aloud. Scalia said the court should not have decided the case.
But, given that it did, he said, “we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.”
Same-sex marriage has been adopted by 12 states and the District of Columbia. Another 18,000 couples were married in California during a brief period when same-sex unions were legal there.
The court has yet to release its decision on California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Original coverage:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is meeting to deliver opinions in two cases that could dramatically alter the rights of gay people across the United States.
The justices are expected to decide their first-ever cases about gay marriage Wednesday in their last session before the court’s summer break. Hours before the court was to issue its rulings, crowds began lining up outside the Supreme Court building in hopes of getting a seat inside the courtroom.
The issues before the court are California’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies legally married gay Americans a range of tax, health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.
The broadest possible ruling would give gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. But several narrower paths also are available, including technical legal outcomes in which the court could end up saying very little about same-sex marriage.
If the court overturns California’s Proposition 8 or allows lower court rulings that struck down the ban to stand, it will take about a month for same-sex weddings to resume for the first time since 2008, San Francisco officials have said.
The high court rulings are arriving amid rapid change regarding gay marriage. The number of states permitting same-sex partners to wed has doubled from six to 12 in less than a year, with voter approval in three states in November, followed by legislative endorsement in three others in the spring.
At the same time, an effort to legalize gay marriage in Illinois stalled before the state’s legislative session ended last month. And 30 states have same-sex marriage bans enshrined in their constitutions.
Among those waiting outside for the opportunity to hear the justices read their opinions was Ian Holloway, 34, of Los Angeles, who said he and his partner were optimistic the court would strike down his state’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in his state.
“We have rings ready. We’re ready to go as soon as the decision comes down,” he said. Others outside the court carried signs reading “2 moms make a right” and “I Do’ Support Marriage Equality.”
While most spectators appeared to be in favor of gay marriage, there were those against. Larry Cirignano, 57, said he had driven four hours from his home in Far Hills, N.J., when he heard Wednesday would be decision day. He carried a sign that read “M=” followed by symbols for man and woman.
Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry, in 2004. Same-sex marriage also is legal, or soon will be, in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Roughly 18,000 same-sex couples got married in California in less than five months in 2008, after the California Supreme Court struck down a state code provision prohibiting gay unions.
California voters approved Proposition 8 in November of that year, writing the ban into the state’s constitution.
Two same-sex couples challenged the provision as unconstitutional and federal courts in California agreed.
The federal marriage law, known by its acronym DOMA, defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits. Another provision not being challenged for the time being allows states to withhold recognition of same-sex marriages from other states.
DOMA easily passed Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the year of his re-election.
Several federal district and appeals courts struck down the provision. In 2011, the Obama administration abandoned its defense of the law but continued to enforce it. House Republicans are now defending DOMA in the courts. President Barack Obama subsequently endorsed gay marriage in 2012.
The justices chose for their review the case of 83-year-old Edith Windsor of New York, who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her partner of 44 years died in 2009.
Windsor, who goes by Edie, married Thea Spyer in 2007 after doctors told them Spyer would not live much longer. She suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Spyer left everything she had to Windsor.
Windsor would have paid nothing in inheritance taxes if she had been married to a man.